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Hogwarts Colloquium and Celebration

J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter Series has influenced a generation of fans, scholars, artists, and writers. In celebration of the 20th anniversary of the Battle of Hogwarts, the South Florida State College (SFSC) Library and the SFSC Honors Program present a celebration and colloquium of this immersive and ever-popular fictional world on Friday, May 3 from 9 a.m. – 4 p.m.

The celebration and colloquium include a mix of fun and scholarly activities from games, crafts, a costume contest, and butter beer sampling to presentations of creative and scholarly works inspired by the Harry Potter books, including a performance showcase, poster sessions, and panel presentations. For more information, please see our conference page (Hogwarts Colloquium and Celebration) or contact Claire A. Miller, librarian, at Claire.Miller@southflorida.edu.

Agenda

10:30 AM: The Folklore Tradition of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone -- Carol Mahler (Library 2nd Floor Quiet Study Room)
J. K. Rowling uses the traditions of folklore in her story Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone to create a young adult novel in the fantasy fiction genre. Fantasy fiction is defined as “imaginative fiction featuring especially strange settings and grotesque characters.” To create those “strange settings” and “grotesque characters” Rowling relied on folklore, and narrative elements in the story will be identified as motifs in Stith Thompson’s Motif-Index of Folk-Literature. Identifying these aspects connects her story to traditional folk literature.

11:00 AM: Poster Sessions (Library 2nd Floor)

Muggles, Makeup, and Microbes -- Leticia Jauregui For my Biology II Honors project, I and Dr. Patel barcoded bacteria. I set out to examine the bacterial contamination of makeup samples. We samples of both used and new tubes of lipstick to see if any pathogenic bacteria was present. We used PCR amplification of the 16s RNA gene and were able to sequence it to identify what species of bacteria was present. Our results brought us to some very interesting conclusions that we did not expect.

How Does the Skelegro? -- Charlotte Gray In his second year at Hogwarts, Harry had to regrow the bones in his arm after they were vanished by Professor Gilderoy Lockhart. The potion Skelegro was used to regrow all 30 bones in Harry’s arm in 12 hours. What did the potion need to able to do that and how might it have gone about it? An osteological and textual analysis of the action of the healing potion Skelegro on the biochemical level and the possible mechanisms of the that action.

2:00 PM: The Books of Harry Potter: Textbooks, Magic, and the College Book Store -- Jensen Brushwood (Library 2nd Floor Quiet Study Room)
From Tom Riddle’s Diary to Harry’s Potions textbook, books and textbooks form an essential part of the Hogwarts experience. But how do the booklists in every acceptance letter happen? SFSC’s Follet Campus Store manager examines importance of books in Harry Potter’s world and the overlaps of a fictional and real-world textbook buying process.